CDS 101: Principles of Feedback and ControlCourse OverviewRichard M. MurrayControl and Dynamical SystemsCalifornia Institute of TechnologyDecember 7, 2002, DRAFT 0.92AbstractCDS 101 is a first year graduate class in control for non-specialists. The course is structuredto introduce the principles and tools of control to students in a diverse set of disciplines. Thelevel of mathematical abstraction is kept to a minimum, while attempting to maintain a carefuland rigorous approach to the subject. The main structure of the course is presented and adetailed description of the course contents is given.1 IntroductionCDS 101 is an experimental course being developed in the Conrol and Dynamical Systems Depart-ment at Caltech. This document provides an overview of the course, including the pedagogicalapproach taken in the course. This document is intended to serve as documentation for instructorsand TAs for CDS 101, as well as others interested in developing similar courses.1.1 Course Audience and GoalsCDS 101 is intended for advanced students in science and engineering who are interested in theprinciples and tools of feedback control, but not the analytical techniques for design and synthesis ofcontrol systems. Special attention is payed to insuring that the course is accessible to students frombiolgical, physical, and information sciences. These students have varying levels of mathematicalsophistication, especially with regards to continuous mathematics.The goal of the course is to enable students to use the principles and tools of feedback andcontrol in their research activities. In particular, after taking this course, students should be ableto build control-oriented models of physical, biological, or information systems and simulate thosemodels in the time-domain; analyze stability, performance and robustness of the models; and designrudimentary feedback control systems in the time and frequency domain. Special emphasis is givento state space methods for analysis and synthesis since these techniques are needed for systemsthat are nonlinear and asynchronous.1.2 Course AdministrationCDS 101 is taught as a one hour/week main lecture, a weekly homework set, and a (currentlyoptional) tutorial/application lecture. The course is taught in 10 weeks, with 8 homework sets, amidterm, and a final.1The main lecture (Mondays, 2-3 pm) is a prepared presentation that covers the main topics forthe week. Hardware demonstrations are used to convey concepts when possible, along with simu-lations and interactive MATLAB sessions. Each lecture introduces the main MATLAB commandsneeded to implement the concepts. A printed copy of the lecture presentation is handed out atthe beginning of each lecture so that students can take notes. For many lectures, a printout of theMATLAB code used for the examples used in the lecture is also included.The homework set for CDS 101 consists of 2 problems per week, with at least one of thesebeing a computer exercise. The computer exercises use MATLAB and SIMULINK, and considerexamples that are moderate complexity, to allow the power of the tools to be demonstrated. Thehomeworks are designed to require approximately 2-3 hours to solve. Students were asked to reportthe number of hours spent on the homework on the first page of the homework, so that the amountof time used could be tracked and the difficulty of the homeworks could be adjusted appropriately.Lectures are given each week (Friday, 2-3 pm) to provide application examples and reviewselected material in advance of the midterm and final. The application lectures are given by facultyand are intended to provide a bridge between the topics given in classes and the research activitiesof the faculty. For 2002, the lectures include:• Insect flight modeling and control, Michael Dickinson (BE)• Congenstion control of the Internet, Eric Klavins (CS)• Quantum feedback control, Hideo Mabuchi (Ph)• Control of the Keck and CELT telescopes, Doug MacMartin (UTRC)These lectures are advertised to the campus so that anyone can attend. They are currently optionalfor the students, but will be a required part of the course in future years.In addition, some Friday lecture slots are used for reviews by the head TA. The first Fridaylecture of the term is a tutorial on the use of MATLAB. The lectures on the fifth and tenth weeksof the term are reserved for a review of the material that will be covered on the midterm and final.CDS 101 is co-taught with the first term of a more traditional controls course, CDS 110ab.CDS 110a shares the Monday lecture with CDS 101, but has an additional two hours of lectures onWednesday (1-3 pm) that goes into more detail on the selected topics. The lectures are designedsuch that very little information is repeated in the Wednesday lectures. This structure for thecourse requires that the Monday lectures be self-contained, yet serve as an effective introductionto the more detailed concepts provided in the Wednesday lectures.1.3 Pre-courseSince CDS 101 is intended to be taken by students with a diverse mathematics background, aspecial pre-course is offered in the week before the course begins. This pre-course gives a conciseintroduction to three main topics: linear algebra, ordinary differential equations, and dynamicalsystems. The pre-course spans two days, with three major topics: modeling of physical systems,ordinary differential equations, and linear algebra. Two one hour lectures are given in each topic,with homework sets and computer exercises assigned (intended to be done that same day).In 2002, the pre-course had 25 students attend the lectures. The pre-course was advertisedthrough flyers, e-mail to faculty, and e-mail to mailing lists for various groups, centers, and depart-ments. The most effective mechanism for announcing the course was via established mailing liststhat went to students.21.4 Mud cards“Mud cards” are a simple tool for allowing students to get additional information on topics thatthey didn’t understand in the lecture. 3 × 5 cards are handed out at the beginning of each lectureand the students are instructed to write on the cards the “muddiest” part of the lecture. Thesecards are collected at the end of the class and the TAs sort them into categories and write upanswers to the questions that arose. The answers are posted on the web the evening of the lecture,rapidly providing additional information for students who had questions.The database used for storing
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